Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

On the first question about the new quangos we created, Deputy Sean Fleming referred to them as if their creation was bad per se. I jotted them down as he went through them. NewERA is a commitment in the programme for Government to look at sweating real value from the State agencies and it is doing a great job. The Irish Financial Advisory Council, IFAC, is a requirement under the EU treaty, that we signed up and that was voted on by the people. The microfinance agency is delivering funding to the SME sector which is probably the most critical issue we face and is developing the supports for microfinance small start-ups and microenterprise. On the Pensions Authority, the pensions issue is one of the biggest issues we face. The authority was set up by law, there was a lengthy debate about it and it is absolutely necessary. The pyrite agency is a temporary agency to resolve an issue that has been hanging around for 20 years. We will resolve it and that is important to all the families that are stuck there. We had a debate about the reasoning for Irish Water. I will not go through the rest. On the Child and Family Support Agency,-----